Whittling (Open)

[Nicodemus]

On such a beautiful day as today, there was no reason why any beast should be inside. The sun was shining, the air fresh and clear, and the morning dew had not yet evaporated from the leaves. No doubt that was where all of the other Redwallers were: outside, enjoying the day, running carelessly around, laughing, telling jokes. That was where, by all rights, Basil should be just now.

Instead, he sat in the great hall, all alone. In his pale paws he cradled a shapeless piece of wood; he turned it over and over and over. The mouse pulled out the little carving knife he had found for himself and pressed the blade to the wood.

Really, I should be outside. He made the first cut into the wood, scraping away part of a protruding knot.

Where everyone else is. His second stroke of the knife smoothed a patch of wood in between two dents.

I can do this outside. The knife caught in one of the little indentations. Basil put pressure on it, trying to smooth down the wood. Instead, he sent the knife skittering across the floor and out of his hands.

His left paw fumbled for his cane. Not again. Clumsiness plagues me, eh? He thought. The cherry wood staff was not where he left it, as was per usual for him. Basil stood, placing little weight on his left footpaw, and bent down to grab it out from underneath the bench. For a moment the wood seemed to evade his grasp, but his paw caught ahold of the staff soon enough.

Once he had it in his paw, he leaned on it, picking up the knife from the ground and the wood from the bench. Basil's ears perked up. Someone was coming in from outside. Perhaps they wanted to talk with him?

"Ah, good morning," He said congenially, not caring who it was. The person's identity did not matter, so long as they had come to talk to him.

[Wildrun]

The sun was shining bright, the Dibbuns were enjoying themselves in the strawberry patch, and there was really no reason for Oaklea Wildrun to have slinked back inside. The oonly excuse she could coem up with was that her black fur made the summer heat uncomfortable, and this was true enough. The aforementioned bright sunlight had even given her a headache. She sighed--the headache could aslo have been induced by the fact that she had been hanging upside down from a low tree branch for the past ten minutes, but what could you do? She was a sucker for goodbeast-badbeast games, and the Dibbuns had needed her to play the badbeast who got punished.

Squinting in the half-shade of the Abbey's shadows, she could make out the shape of some creature alone in the Great Hall, sitting at a table. After a moment, Oaklea was able to identify Basil, a mouse she admire for his wood carving skills but had seldom spoken to. The mousemaid was about to turn and sneak her way into the cellars, where she knew she could find some cool strawberry fizz, when she noticed that Basil was, at this very moment, shaping something from a block of wood. On an impulse, she called out to him;

"Basil! Can I join you?"

((Bad post, sorry. In a rush. ))

[Nicodemus]

Very glad to have someone to talk to, Basil promptly sat back down, tugging his collar up around his chin. He was pleased that, of all creatures, it was Oaklea Wildrun- a maid he had rarely spoken to but had seen around on many occasions. It seemed as if every time he meant to talk to her, the time came for him to leave Redwall. Wryly, Basil thought, Just as easy to miss me as to see me, I suppose.

Out loud, and in his very best cheery voice, he said, "Ah, absolutely! I was hoping for company, you know, as it can get so lonely in here, all alone. 'Suppose that's why it's lonely: I'm all alone." He chuckled without knowing it. His good mood was making him quite jolly. The mouse swung his cane out to the side, adopting a jaunty pose and a congenial grin to match.

"You don't mind sitting with one half-crippled mouse, then?" Basil chuckled again. "I've got a piece of wood to carve, too." The wood was presented to the mousemaid as Basil leaned his cane against the side of the table.

The conversation- although currently one-sided- was welcome in the half-shadows of the old building. Basil was grateful that he hadn't had to walk outside, where all the others were laughing and playing, to find someone to converse with. He never grew completely sullen over his injured paw, but there were days when he longed to cast his cane aside once and for all. Every beast had those days, when they wished to be all they couldn't be. Basil, however, had them no more frequently than anyone else did, despite his paw.

But today was one of them, and he sighed very softly, hoping that the mousemaid would not grow bored talking to him and decide to return outside. He supposed that, in the worst case scenario, he would find somewhere shady to sit and work on his piece, but he much preferred to stay inside, where no one was running recklessly around him.

"Say," he mentioned, "Won't you sit down? I wouldn't be a gentleman if I did not offer the lady a seat!"

[Wildrun]

Oaklea eyed the slim knife Basil held in his paw as she took a seat. She didn't doubt his goodness as an Abbeybeast, but anyone waving a knife around was enough to set her warrior nerves on alert. Catching sight of the lump of wood, her focus on the knife dwindled and was replaced by open curiosity.

"Thanks. What are you making?" The mousemaid tapped her paw against the table in an effort not to reach out and poke Basil's work in progress--she hated it when people read over her shoulder while she was writing, and she didn't want to offend a fellow artist by interfereing with his work. She heard a soft sigh, almost like Basil was deflating, and Oaklea glanced at him. Making up her mind, Oaklea settled down on the bench and put the whittling knife outo f her mind completely. She had been wandering, bored, and now had company. What could be better?